THE PASSION OF FREUD

- LOVE AND SEXUALITY AND PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

INTRODUCTION:
As I will discuss, Freud was, to the end of his life, passionately invested in his
ideas about the rle of sexuality in neurosogenesis, character formation and
psycho-analysis per se this was the conceptualization that he believed had, or
perhaps would, disturb the sleep of the world (1914, SEXIV, p 21). However
these ideas as outlined determinedly by Freud would now seem of limited
relevance to psycho-analysis and even perhaps at times, in fact, a little
embarrassing and worthy of a quiet apology.
How do we understand this?
I will begin by proposing a certain perspective on Freuds writings. In this I will
begin with a reference to Freud by Lacan. In Ecrits Lacan refers to an apparent
perception of Freud held by psycho-analysts with respect to his discoveries of the
dynamic unconscious and the fundamental rule, as if these were the result of a
lucky accident. In other words, Freud never knew what he was doing (1977,
p163). Lacan continues to state,
A return to Freuds text shows on the contrary the absolute
coherence between the technique and his discovery, and at the
same time this coherence allows us to put all his procedures in
their proper place (p163).
Seemingly, according to Lacan at least, Freud knew quite well what he was
doing. And, if, as Lacan proposes, we put all his procedures in their proper place,
one of his procedures, perhaps the most important for psycho-analysis overall, is
that of his direct communications to us re psycho-analysis.
If we accept that Freud was not in a state of mconnaisance (Lacan, 1977,
p163) concerning the unconscious and its conjoint manifestations as
transference and resistance, and that these dynamics afflict all of us its only a
matter of degree of expression at any point of time then presumably Freuds
procedure with respect to his communications to us will reflect his understanding
of this. Like an analyst in the consulting room he will be perpetually mindful of
our capacity to hear and our important tendency to mis-hear.
As in the consulting room the contrast between the analysts communication and
the analysands, our, re-presentation will not just be one of concept but also one
of form. The analyst will be intending a communication directed towards
increasing complexity, this is the nature of understanding, but the analysand,
and us for Freud, will be seeking conceptualizations of decreasing complexity,
our minds, generally, demand this. In this it can be noted that knowing always
involves a corresponding unknowing, whereas understanding involves an

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integration of knowing and its corresponding unknowing. The challenge for the
analyst, in their communications to the patient, is not to increase the level of
unknowing inadvertently while trying to aid in knowing but to facilitate the
integration of the unknowing with, and into, the knowing. However because of
our intuitive awareness of the patients movement to decreasing complexity, we
will meet them there e.g. with a statement of fundamental hypothesis but
then assist in a movement towards the increasing complexity of understanding.
The horizontal axis on Bions grid is a good example of some of the procedures
involved in this. I am proposing that much of Freuds communication to us is of
this nature.
So if Freud, at least intuitively, was mindful of these issues then, as is being
proposed, his communications to us would be carefully put which they
generally are. However there would seem to be one of his papers in which this is
not the case. In his 1914 paper, On the history of the psycho-analytic
movement (SEXIV), Freud attacks the claims of Jung and Adler, and their
followers, that their ideas either revise his or displace them re psycho-analysis,
in a manner which is, at times, grandiose, passionate and belligerent (Strachey,
p4). Although he is reasonably dispassionate with his disputations around the
fundamental defining issues of psycho-analysis i.e. transference, resistance, the
unconscious and dream-analysis (e.g. p64), the passionate essence of his attacks
is around their apparent devaluation of, and possible dismissal of, the central
importance of infantile sexuality and the Oedipus complex in neurosogenesis
and, by extension, psycho-analysis.
How do we understand this?
It is not only easy, but too easy, to fall back into a position of dismissal. What
analysand does not think from time to time that their analyst is the one with the
problem? This, of course, may be true. But is it true in this case? Do we follow
the path towards greater or lesser complexity? If we follow that to greater
complexity then we are drawn to wonder what Freud is trying to tell us in his
insistent and passionate manner. Whatever it may be, the message would seem
to have been lost. For example, at the last IPA Congress, none of the keynote
speakers in their well-rounded and thoughtful papers re psycho-analysis,
mentioned sexuality at all and Ferro only made one passing reference to the
Oedipus complex (2009, p226).
Following the assumption that Freud was not just having a bad day, but was
passionately and determinedly trying to tell us something, the question arises as
to what it could be and why it has apparently been lost to us? To do this, I will
consider his ideas about sexuality, the Oedipus complex etc. Obviously to do
this fully in a brief paper is impossible. However I will instead consider his ideas
about these issues as discussed in his last offering to us, his An outline of
psycho-analysis (1940 (1938), SEXXIII).

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FREUD AND SEXUALITY

In his Outline Freud discusses in an involved and involving way his ideas re
sexuality and its key role in neurosogenesis and character formation. This
constitutes a chapter (Chapter VII) with a particularly poignant title, An example
of psycho-analytic work (p183-194). Here he considers issues re sexuality in a
step by step manner before putting forward his key points. Within these
conceptual steps I will extract two whose importance I trust will become clear.
One is that he perceives sexuality as an alloy of the erotic and the destructive;
he writes of
the fact that most of the urges of sexual life are not of a purely
erotic nature but have arisen from alloys of the erotic instinct
with portions of the destructive instinct (p186).
Secondly, he also states of the sexual,
We shall not be wrong.....in saying that the weak point in the
egos organization seems to lie in the attitude to the sexual
function, as though the ...... antithesis between self-preservation
and the preservation of the species had found a psychological
expression at that point (p186).
In other words, Freud is drawing our attention to the issues of the seeming
conflation of the sexual and destructive drives, sexuality is as much an
expression of the destructive drives as of the erotic, and secondly to his
perception that the ego cannot successfully deal with the antithesis, the conflict
at interface, of the self-preservative and sexual instincts.
To consider the essential complexity of these conceptualizations, I will refer to
Freuds ideas in Beyond the pleasure principle (1920, SEXVIII). Here Freud
writes of the instincts of self-preservation, the ego instincts (p41),
They are component instincts whose function is to assure that
the organism shall follow its own path to death, and to ward off
any possible ways of returning to inorganic existence other than
those which are immanent in the organism itself (p39).
Freud proposes that these instincts will come into conflict with the sexual
instincts because of the latters determination to preserve life but essentially of
the species not of the individual, beyond a point. Of the sexual instincts Freud
writes that,
They operate against the purpose of the other instincts, ...; and
this fact indicates that there is an opposition between them and
the other instincts, an opposition whose importance was long
ago recognised by the theory of the neuroses (1920 p40).
Even though this antithesis between instincts would seem straight-forward by
Freuds description, it is obviously not that simple. Both the selfpreservative and

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the sexual instincts will have as their fundamental basic goal the survival of the
individual against lifes forces that would have it otherwise- but they will, by
Freuds description, become opposed.
Of course the questions arise as to how, when and why this opposition occurs,
and the answer to these questions would seem to lie in how Freud views the
essences of these drives. In other words even though both would seem to be
directed towards the survival of the individual, for both this is only a means to an
end and when that end begins to intrude so will the antithesis. The goal of the
ego-instincts is the death of the individual, in their own time. The temporary
survival of the individual against forces from within and/or without is the goal
its as if there is something special about life, life of the individual, for its own
sake. This is certainly a curious notion but one that seems inherent to psychoanalysis with its determined focus upon the individual.
The goal of the sexual instincts is, of course, the survival of the species, the
group of which the individual is a member. This dual status, as individual and
member of the group, makes the issue of the drive of the sexual instinct complex
for the individual. Certainly instinctually it would seem that, in alliance with the
life drives, they have the survival and development of the individual as their
goal. This development of the individual is towards becoming a member of
groups of increasing number and diversity. The survival of the individual via the
sexual drives, which are directed outwardly as will be seen, would seem to have
two inherent goals. One would be that they will stay around long enough to
reproduce; the second is that they will grow and develop, and come into a
situation in which optimal reproduction becomes possible. After this the
individual falls away but their life within the group situation, via their children is
promoted.
In the referred to comments by Freud about the alloy between the erotic and the
destructive within the sexual, the question must arise with respect to the origin
and purpose of the destructive. It would seem that the destructive would
generally in Freuds writings - be seen as the outwardly directed death drives,
dealing with, or to deal with, threats to the existence of the individual. But if this
is the case what are they doing alloyed to the drives to which they are
supposedly antithetical? Perhaps it could be hypothesised that, as proposed, the
destructive element of the sexual is reflective of a point of common goal the
propagation of the interests/desires of the individual. But, it would certainly not
seem to be that simple. Seemingly, if this hypothesis is followed, a part of the
destructive drive is alloyed with the erotic to push forward with the drive towards
gratification for the individual and for the species. However such activity will
almost certainly also transgress the self-preservative drives and these will
therefore take up opposition against the sexual. Shame and guilt would seem to
be likely manifestations of this, seemingly shame more in women, and guilt more
in men. However this situation becomes much more complicated because the
sexual drive involves an other either in fantasy or reality, or, more likely, both.
And this other will also manifest similar ambiguity, perhaps paradox, around the
relationship between the erotic and the destructive. Accordingly, there will be

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interface between these issues within and between them. The complexity, which
can be seen to unfold, can easily be seen as the source of the struggles with
which our egos seem to be confronted. Of course it also represents a rich vein to
be mined in contrasting opposites by Shakespeare and pornography.
I must emphasise that this is not intended to be a distracting aside but a
preparatory step for what follows in Freuds Outline to which I will now return.
In this he proceeds to describe at least how he sees it the beginning of the
interaction between mother and infant and the beginnings of the sexual. I will
quote him in full here because there is no other way to do justice to his
statement. He writes
A childs first erotic object is the mothers breast that nourishes
it; love has its origin in attachment to the satisfied need for
nourishment. There is no doubt that to begin with the child
does not distinguish between the breast and its own body, when
the breast has to be separated from the body and shifted to the
outside, because the child so often finds it absent, it carries
with it as an object a part of the original narcissistic cathexis.
The first object is later completed into the person of the mother,
who not only nourishes it but also looks after it and thus arouses
in it a number of physical sensations, pleasurable and
unpleasurable. By her care of the childs body she becomes its
first seducer (p188 (Freuds italics)).
He immediately follows this by stating;
In these two relations lies the root of the mothers importance,
unique, without parallel, established unalterably for a whole
lifetime as the first and strongest love-object and as the
prototype of all later love relations for both sexes (p188).
This is obviously a complex statement being put forward by Freud as a preface to
his following discussions about the structuring conceptualizations of sexuality,
the Oedipus complex, castration anxiety and penis envy. I proposed at the
beginning of this paper that Freud generally communicated to us as the
analytically-aware communicator, in a clear and simple fashion with the hope,
and perhaps belief, that the complexity inevitable and necessary would build
silently from there. However in this case it would seem that Freud was aware
that his time had almost run out and we would either get it or not, he had more
important things to tell us.
In this, an on example of analytic work, as the chapter title proposes, Freud is
taking a lot for granted, I believe too much. I suspect we dont get it and hence
his conceptualizations re the Oedipus complex, castration anxiety and penis
envy will seem reflective of Freuds mconnaisance.
However I believe there is possibly a further issue involved in this manner of
presentation by Freud. As proposed he would seem to be writing under the

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heavy shadow of death, not just his own but also the flood of Nazism and its
consequences. This subject statement would seem to have a rush towards
sexuality about it or a rush away from issues of death in its various forms. This
is an idea I will come back to.
Rather than being correspondingly rushed I wish to take some time to consider
what Freud is telling us in this seemingly convoluted communication. Much of
what he writes he has outlined before particularly in the second of his three
essays on the Psychology of Love (1912 SEXI). Accordingly I will briefly refer to
this much earlier text. Here he tells us that love originates by, or in, the union of
an affectionate and a sensuous current (p180) of affectivity. Of these he
tells us that the affectionate is the older and is formed on the basis of the
interests of the self-preservative instinct (p180) and is directed towards those
who will best serve these interests. However he then adds that, From the very
beginning it carries along with it contributions from the sexual instincts
components of erotic interest... (p180).
Freud in this 1912 essay is making several points of which I will focus on two in
particular. Here he describes the central role of the self-preservative instincts,
the ego-instincts, in the psychological movement to the outside the world of
objects. Secondly he notes and describes the link in this to the sexual instincts.
In this the sexual instincts are directed towards the bodily functions and then
objects necessary for the preservation of life. In other words, the selfpreservation instincts, later seen by Freud as the retroverted drives towards
death, are linked to the sexual instincts whose cathexis is directed to functions
and objects of the self-preservative instincts. At this point in development, in
Freuds view, the life/death drives, the self-preservative drives, and the sexual
drives are alloyed. This of course contrasts with his (quoted) statement that the
weak-point of the ego is at the interface of experience of these, purportedly,
conflicting drives.
I refer back to this 1912 paper because here Freud expressed his views about
the self-preservative and sexual drives at the beginning in a less compact, or
perhaps, cryptic way. And in this there is to be noted the concept of the linking
of the self-preservative and sexual instincts as described. Now if we consider his
later statement and pursue what Freud intends; it will be noted that he begins by
again linking the erotic with self-preservation, nourishment, via the object, the
mothers breast and makes a statement in this about love. As discussed, in
Freuds view, at the beginning stage turning outwardly to the object is
determined by the self-preservative instinct but is, essentially, carried out by the
sexual, erotic, drives. The two drives are interlinked, complementary, and the
successful experience achieved through this interlocking has the profound
affective experience called love about it. In fact Freud indicates that this
experience, achieved through the interlocking and mutuality of these drives,
directed towards the embodied object of the mother, fixes us for life all other
love relations will be facsimiles.

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Freud, proceeding further into these issues notes that initially there is a
conflation of perception of the object of desire and satisfaction the body and
the breast. This conceptualization would seem to be reflective of the linking of
the two drives as discussed the self-preservative directed towards the contined
existence of the individual played out in the body and the sexual directed
outwardly to the object which will initially be perceived as part of the body but to
be differentiated to the object per se.
Although this would seem as a simple process of progressive differentiation, I
believe it indicates a crucial point in development as has been emphasised in
another context by Winnicott (1971, p14). At this point the developing individual
proceeds from one mode of existence based upon an essentially silent inner
sense of being/not being to an outwardly directed existence in which objects are
progressively granted real status and the individual sense of existence becomes
defined and determined within interactions with these objects. This would seem
to be a crucial point for psycho-analysis.
In another context Freud introduced these issues in his 1911 paper
Formulations on the two principles of mental functioning (SEXII). Here he
points out that when the state of psychical rest (p219) is disturbed by what he
calls the peremptory demands of internal needs (p219), When this happened,
whatever was thought of (wished for) was simply presented in a hallucinatory
manner, just as still happens today with our dream-thoughts every night (219).
In a foot-note he comments further about this,
It will rightly be objected that an organism which was slave to
the pleasure principle and neglected the reality of the external
world could not maintain itself alive for the shortest time.....The
employment of a fiction like this is however, justified when one
considers that the infant provided one includes with it the care
it receives from the mother does almost realize a psychical
system of the kind (p220, F.N.).
In these comments Freud is pre-empting the subject issues of his 1938
statement. What he could be seen to be saying is that the internal system of
being, played out at a physical/psychological level over life and death, is
disrupted when the movement towards death becomes too intrusive. It is in the
same physical, becoming psychological, systems that these issues are played
out the very systems that are directed towards life, development and growth
are the same systems that are directed towards our death as Freud tells us in
Beyond the pleasure principle, everything living dies for internal
reasons(1920, p38(Freuds italics)). However what complicates this system is
that it is not autonomous. Left to its own procedures and resources death is
inevitable sooner rather than later. The so-called life drives therefore have to
direct to outside the system but it would seem in Freuds description this is not
possible so, as he writes, death should occur in the shortest time. Survival,
both for the individual and the species requires movement to the outside, to the
world of objects, and this would seem to be where the sexual drives, object-

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directed and pleasure-seeking, enter. However, Freud does propose an

intermediary step, that of hallucinatory wish-fulfilment. The individual can stay
true to themselves as an individual in their own right by creating their own wishfulfilling scenarios. It is not clear in Freuds description here or elsewhere how
much this involves use of a fantasised object but, it would seem that this is
implied. Also, the correlation with dream, which obviously involves objects the
product of construction would imply that object-relating is involved but whether
this is under the influence of the life drives seeking to undo unpleasure -, or the
pleasure-seeking sexual drives is again not clear, but at least it could possibly be
the former.
However, as Freud tells us both in 1911 and 1938, when this fails then true
object relating, apparently via the sexual drives, becomes inevitable. But in
1911 he also tells us that as long as the mother is adjusted to the childs needs
then the period of hallucinatory wish-fulfilment, like the period of dream, can be
sustained. As described by Winnicott (1971,pg14) it is the mothers failure that
provokes the movement to true object relating, this is what Freud proceeds to
tell us in his 1938 statement about the outside and the object.
There are two further points in this that I believe are important. One is the issue
of narcissism. However I would like to discuss the other first. An impression
but impression only one gains from Freuds writings about these issues is one
of quiet negativity about the issue of movement to the outside and the object
the inverted commas hint at this I believe. It is as if Freud feels himself
trapped into a theory about a way of being that he wishes to reject but cant.
The ideas relate to the individual, their inner world, the dream etc, ideas about
existence based upon experience of self even if the experience directs towards
death. The alternative, compelled upon both Freud and the individual, is the
movement to the world of objects who and which define who we are, how and
what we think, etc. The issue of survival compelling and becoming a member of
the group- doing ones bit - would seem to irk Freud. And the central and
compelling rle of the sexual is an integral part of this. In this, his excitement
about the role of sexual drives may be because through his insights, he has
seemingly mastered these a movement back to his seemingly desired unique
individual status, which was certainly confirmed by others.
As indicated I believe that the issue of narcissism moving to object-relating is
also important. Following the ideas outlined the concept of narcissism would
seem to be product of both the ego-instincts and the sexual instincts in some
form of unity. This would certainly be consistent with what Freud proposed in
1914 (On narcissism, SEXIV). However here, in 1938, the concept of the egoinstincts, the self-preservative instinct, has been revised. The difference is, of
course, the balanced relationship between life and death drives. The life drives
carry with them the issue of the inherent movement towards death. Narcissism
therefore would be perched on the edge of the movement towards death and in
this the sexual drives are important. In other words, within the relationship with
the self the drives will play out their issues. The ego instincts will play out issues
around the movement from, and to, death, the sexual instincts towards

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immediate pleasure and overall survival of the species, that is, a determined
movement towards life for now. This issue of the presence of and dealing with
death can be found within narcissistic issues and, I suggest, is central to what
Freud writes in Mourning and melancholia (1915, SEXIV) in which one could
transpose the shadow of death for the shadow of the object (p249).
This issue about narcissism is also of importance, I suggest, because if the
shadow of death is an inherent part of narcissism and; the movement is from
here to object relating, then the shadow of death will be inherent in, or at the
basis of, object relations. In other words, if object relating is seen as more than
as based upon the sexual drives because the ego-instincts are locked within the
individual, then the manifestation of the ego-instincts in object-relating will be
the shadow of death. This becomes important when the essence of the mothers
relationship with her child is considered.
Returning again to this subject statement by Freud. He proceeds to indicate that
the mothers physical care of her child will stimulate within the child a sexual
response she is the childs seducer, arousing in him or her, the sexual. This
notion of the movement to the sexual in terms of physical and, particularly,
mental response, is put forward by Freud in a number of contexts. In his 1908
paper On the sexual theories of children (SEIX) he indicates that it is not the
sexual difference and interaction between the parents which stimulates sexual
curiosity and enquiry, but the birth of a sibling. Of this Freud writes,
A childs desire for knowledge on this point does not in fact
awaken spontaneously... it is aroused under the goad of selfseeking instincts that dominate him, when perhaps after the
end of his second year he is confronted with the arrival of a
new baby(p212).
A second example of the concept of the move to the sexual is inherent in the
subject, 1938, statement as the erotic desire for the breast. A third example
follows this statement. As Freud discusses the emotional difficulties for the child
at weaning, he describes how, the boy, at least, responds by seeking a sexual
solution via exhibition of his phallus to his mother.
Because of the constraints of time I will not follow Freud further although
obviously the issue of castration anxiety, penis envy and the Oedipus complex
are important and I will discuss these later if desired. Instead I will finish off with
reference to three views re sexuality and the infant that contrast with Freuds.

CONTRASTING VIEWS
I refer to these views as a counterbalance to Freuds to introduce, by contrast
with Freuds views, further thought and consideration about how life and death
and sexuality are played out throughout life from the beginning. However these
contrasting views also point towards the beginning issue of this paper, how
Freuds views (re sexuality etc) have been developed or dismissed by psychoanalysis did we get it or not? One point about the contrast (as least with Bollas

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and Laplanche) is that these authors would seem to move to an interpsychic

perspective in contrast with Freuds seemingly determined intrapsychic position.
First I will briefly note the views of Bollas (1992) and Laplanche (1989) who put
forward the perspective that the origins of the childs sexuality begin within the
mother and her drives as expressed in the care of her infant. In this the conflict
described by Freud over sexuality, would have its possible origins within the child
between its psycho-somatic state and the imposed sexuality.
Of this Bollas writes;
Maternal erotism would overwhelm the infant were it not for the
power of the infants instinct, as the drive ruthlessly to gratify
hunger is...more than a match for the profound effect of
maternal presence
(1992, p42)
In contrast Laplanche writes of
an encounter between an individual whose psycho-somatic
structures are situated predominantly at the level of need, and
signifiers emanating from an adult. Those signifiers pertain to
the satisfaction of the childs needs but they also convey the
purely interrogative potential of other messages and those
other messages are sexual
(1989, p121)
Laplanche describes the impossible task for the child to master these sexual
communications from the mother not just because of simple difficulties in
comprehension but also because these messages are opaque, in other words
the mother does not comprehend her sexuality so how is the infant to do so.
I will finish with a third reference - to Pontalis (1981) who notes that;
to Freud the dream was a displaced maternal body. He
committed incest with the body of his dreams, penetrated their
secret and wrote the book that made him conqueror and
possessor of the terra incognito (1981 p26-27(Pontaliss
italics))
What Pontalis would seem to be proposing is that, in his view, the mothers
sexual presence is incorporated and becomes the essence of the dream. The
childs sexuality is the mothers sexuality, incorporated and structuring. Pontalis
goes further to propose that in his book on dream interpretation, Freud
triumphed over the silent presence of the mothers sexuality, and, perhaps it can
be proposed, this allowed Freud to inform us about the role of sexuality in a way
that may be difficult for us to understand because of the continued effective
maternal presence in us.

CONCLUSIONS
I will finish with a brief concluding overview of this tumbling succession of ideas.

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The beginning issue/question was why was Freud so passionately invested in his
ideas about sexuality and why have these seemingly become irrelevant to
psycho-analysis. From what has been outlined it would seem in contrast to
others that sexuality is seen by Freud as an active drive almost from the start of
life. It directs pleasure seeking cathexes towards objects and becomes the major
drive, in contrast to the life/death instincts, in the movement towards the object.
It would seem further that this movement is compelled on the individual from
both the life drives and the sexual drives themselves as discussed. Once these
(sexual) drives are alloyed with the destructive then the situation becomes
impossibly complex as described. And it may be that this complexity of
existence, that Freud tried to shelter us from to the point of being accused of
mconnaisance, underlies one reason why the sexual has been pushed to one
side in analysis. Further, Freud would seem to be orientated towards a
philosophy centred round and in individual existence. The sexual by its insistent
movement to the world of objects compromises this and may underlie the egos
difficult reactions with it.
An hypothesis developed through the paper is that the life/death drives are
essentially incapable of directing outwardly to the object- they are played out
internally and external issues are aggressively opposed leave me alone.
Outward movement is the role of the sexual drives, drives which seek the
object for gratificatory purposes to gain pleasure, and to relieve unpleasure.
Because the individual cannot survive be being solely inwardly directed
(life/death drives) beyond hallucinatory wish-fulfilment, directing outwardly via
the sexual drives becomes imperative, for life, and accordingly the life/death
drives and the sexual drives are complementary perhaps forming an alloy as
described by Freud, that equally serves the purposes of the sexual drives (to
overcome resistance, to push into).
However this alliance comes apart when the end (for both drives) is approached.
However, the hypothesis is that this turning to the sexual drives will repeatedly
occur at times in life when the individual feels deprived and frustrated the
displacing birth of a sibling, weaning (perhaps even birth), adolescence etc. In
this the alliance between the life/death drives and the sexual to turn outwardly
would seem to be re-established.
In contrast to Freuds views, others, as referred to, see that the child purely as a
psycho-somatic organism on which sexuality is imposed. If this line of thought is
followed the childs sexuality may be the mothers, irresistibly compelled onto
and into the infant the mother is the seducer because she is.
I have included Pontaliss enigmatic statement because it implies that the
mothers sexual being intrudes into the infant and becomes manifest in, and as,
the dream. Pontalis implies that the conquest of the dream by Freud was the
conquest of the mothers sexual being. If this was the case again we could
comprehend his passion and possessiveness re sexuality.
I will finish there.

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REFERENCES
Bollas, C. (1992),

Hysteria, Routledge: London

Ferro, A. (2009)

Transformations in dreaming and characters in the

psychoanalytic field, Int. J. Psychoanal

Freud, S. (1908),

On the Sexual Theories of Children SEIX

Freud, S. (1911),

Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental

Functioning SEXII

Freud, S. (1912),

On the Universal Tendency of Debasement in the

Sphere of Love (Contributions to the Psychology of
Love II), SEXI

Freud, S. (1914)

On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement,

SEXIV

Freud, S. (1914)

On Narcissism SEXIV

Freud, S. (1915),

Mourning and Melancholia, SEXIV

Freud, S. (1920),

Beyond the Pleasure Principle SEXVIII

Freud, S. (1938 (1940), An Outline of Psycho-Analysis, SEXXIII

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